


Just tear it apart

by PoisonJack



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, General au, Hurt/Comfort, Im really digging writing halfway decent human being Jack, Jack gets to be a hero, Kidnapping, M/M, No smut but Jack loves his Rhysie to pieces, Post ep. 4, devoted Jack is very strange to write, torture (mentioned but not graphic), whatever he's a fluff lord to his kitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:37:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonJack/pseuds/PoisonJack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your basic 'Rhys gets kidnapped, Jack rescues him' one-shot. More recollection than actual shootout stuff I suppose.</p><p>Hurt/comfort like man why would I beat the shit outta poor Rhys :( Jack is actually good at being sweet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just tear it apart

**Author's Note:**

> Random angsty-hurt/comfort bug crawled up my butt and I smashed this thing out LOLOL
> 
> I'm between like four projects at the moment but this came easiest. Enjoy the shit I put poor Rhys through D: I'm not happy with the title or end but meh fuck it :)

It had been 48 hours since Rhys had been kidnapped.

Thirty-six since the list of demands had shown up on Jack's desk by a confused secretary.

Twenty-eight hours had passed since Jack had set down on Pandora with his personal army. 

Twelve hours more gone since the video messages had started coming in. 

Eight since Rhys had stopped fighting back in the videos against the onslaught of torture.

Four hours ago the location of the bandit hideout had been pinpointed.

And the past two hours, Jack and his army had been engaged in a firefight with a surprisingly organized force.

They were taking ground on the bandits room by room while bullets and elemental rounds exploded around them. A grenade decimated a force hunkered down at the end of a hallway and Rhys was still nowhere closer.

Jack was furious, knowing Rhys was somewhere in the filthy compound. Ventilating these scum was too good for them. He wanted the grey cement and dusty exteriors splattered solid red with blood and viscera. He wanted heads on stakes and limbs scattered to the skags.

It was another hour before he came to a room suspiciously under-guarded, and it couldn't have been more advertised that the younger man was inside had they painted arrows and waved flags announcing the fact. Rhys was under lock and key, but it was nothing an acid-round to the door couldn't open.

The cybernetic man was alone in the dingy computer room from the video logs but for two men; one wearing a lab coat which had seen better days, a mismatched beret on his head while he stood in front of a computer, and the other man with a machine gun and mismatched armor, most likely scavenged from other Pandoran scum.

They were quickly turned into red mist by Jack and his men before the CEO went to Rhys. 

The younger man was passed out- must have been to have ignored the gunfire that had just ripped through the room- eyes closed, shirt opened to his abused and bloody chest, lips fat and split, teeth bloody, face and body puffed with dark bruises. His hands were loosely tied together in front of him as if he posed no more threat, flesh arm drenched in tacky red, cybernetic arm shorted out or disabled- Jack didn't know which. 

There was a drive stuck into Rhys' echoport, and the younger man was struggling to draw breath in and out, the sound of air reedy in his gaping mouth. Pale. So pale.

Jack delicately touched blood-stained fingers to Rhys' cheek, calling out _Rhysie_ softly. 

The younger man was only able to flutter one eye, the other swollen shut as he was slowly, slowly moving his head back and forth at the older man. Jack snarled behind him to his soldiers for a medic as he turned back to Rhys.

"Rhysie, baby...."

Rhys was speaking, or trying to- everything was hurt or broken or bruised so speaking was difficult. Jack leaned closer, wanting to touch more but not. "....make it stop....make it stop...."

Jack's eyes were quick over the younger man before it occurred to him to remove the echo drive. Rhys bodily jolted when he did so, looked like he might want to scream but he didn't possess the capacity, before he slumped back down, breath coming hard, throat too raw and dry for the sobs that tried to come out of him. "....make it stop...make it stop...."

Jack was undoing the sticky ties around his hands and gently, carefully touching him in inventory of injuries. He turned behind himself again to address his soldiers. "Take some of those sons of taints _alive_!"

He was going to repay this. All of this.

Tears, few though they were, were dripping from Rhys' eyes, mixing with the blood on his face to sting into open wounds. "....make it stop...."

"Sweetheart, baby, sugar, it's all over," Jack told him, trying to find somewhere that he could touch the other man that wouldn't hurt him more. It didn't seem likely.

Rhys was still shaking his head so imperceptibly, muttering. Jack gently touched his forehead, murmuring to him warmly. It was okay. It was over. He'd get him home, get him off this shithole of a planet. 

Rhys didn't hear any of it through the haze in his brain.

\--

Once-revived before making it back to Helios. 

Two liters of blood.

Four broken bones.

Eight days' coma in the hospital.

Twelve hours of surgery.

Twenty-eight individual contusions.

Thirty-six bandits dead and crucified.

48 hours since Rhys had been brought home, high on painkillers, in Jack's ridiculously huge bed. 

He lay there dazed and half-asleep on his back as Jack sat next to him, watching him, petting him, not doing much else.

Rhys hadn't said much aside from delirious murmuring, but that was a given with how doped up he was. 

Jack had taken a peek into what had been forced into his echoport. They'd been trying to extract information in what Jack could only call programmed torture. He didn't know what Rhys had been through precisely; for all the code told him it _did,_ it didn't tell him how it _felt._ It would have been easier if he was still a hologram, coding himself. But he wasn't anymore, had no idea what havoc it had wreaked on Rhys' body. Or the effect it might've had on his mind. 

He did, however, have an echo-port on the side of his head now. The scientists and doctors told him not to plug himself in since they weren't positive what it did or how it affected the host, and since they didn't have a "cure" for whatever was ailing Rhys, Jack shouldn't mess around with it.

Rhys' brain scans had come back normal- or as normal as someone beaten half to death. That didn't belay anything as to his mental state however. The amount of words that had left the younger man's lips since being back could be counted on one hand.

Rhys' cybernetic hand gripped Jack's, and the older man gave him a squeeze right back. "Sugar?"

Rhys didn't say anything, and his grip didn't lessen. Jack kissed the younger man's bruised temple where the multitude of bandages didn't cover, stroked his thumb over the metallic palm. Jack was murmuring in Rhys' ear, telling him nothing in particular, the warm tones and timbre of his voice mattering far more than the content of his words.

Little by little, Rhys' grip on Jack's hand lessened and he let his eyes flutter closed to Jack's warm voice. And Jack remained there next to him, gently and reassuringly touching. 

The CEO could wait. If Rhys' mind was anything like that of his battered body, then Jack could wait. _He won't heal overnight,_ the doctors had said.

But that was okay. Rhys had brought Jack back into the land of the living, of flesh and blood. Jack was happy to use that life and flesh to comfort the other man in any way necessary. 

And if that meant just staying near him and touching him, speaking softly, quiet reassurance, well, Jack could do that. 

And if it was revenge Rhys wanted- bloody and horrible and painting the entire planet red with Pandoran blood- well, Jack could do that too.

For now though, Jack could kiss the other man, spoon him, offer tacit support.

And he would wait it out right next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm 98% positive this is just a one shot. But as with all the nonsense I'm always posting for these trash lords, you can't trust my word on that >_>
> 
> Come stalk me. I'm bordertrash OHOHO (even if I've never played the damn games >_> so forgive me if the shit I write is like UHHH?)
> 
> http://purge-that-urge-rhackathon.tumblr.com


End file.
